Variable displacement refrigerant compressors have been utilized in automotive air conditioning systems, with the displacement regulated in accordance with cooling demand via either a hydraulic control valve or solenoid control valve. In a typical arrangement, the compressor includes one or more pistons coupled to a variable angle wobble plate or swash plate, and the control valve adjusts a differential pressure acting on a wobble plate control mechanism to vary the wobble plate angle, and hence the compressor displacement. In the control of such a compressor, it has been found that the compressor durability can be improved without significant loss of cooling during high speed operation of the engine by overriding the normal displacement control and de-stroking the compressor to reduce its displacement to a lower value. By way of example, a hydraulic de-stroking implementation is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,321, and electronic de-stoking implementations are disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,606,705 and 5,145,326.
A drawback with known controls of the type described above is that the transition between normal and high-speed displacement control modes is abrupt and tends to produce disturbances in the compressor and the engine powertrain. These disturbances are undesired for reasons of both durability and driveability. Accordingly, what is desired is a dual mode control that minimizes disturbances to the compressor and engine powertrain when transitioning from one control mode to the other.